A vehicle, such as a car or the like, includes a vehicle body supported, and driven by a plurality of wheels. The car can move in a forward direction and a rearward direction. When moving, the environment surrounding the vehicle will often include objects, with which objects the vehicle could collide. In order to obviate such collisions, modern cars are often fitted with a parking sensor.
A typical parking sensor includes a proximity sensor such as an ultrasonic transducer. The ultrasonic transducer works by emitting an ultrasonic wave and monitoring for return waves reflected off objects located within the environment surrounding the vehicle. Upon detecting any objects, the driver can be alerted to their presence and even provided with their approximate location. This is often achieved by a dashboard mounted display device.
This type of proximity sensor is inherently inaccurate since they will only measure the distance to an object. As a result, some objects may be clearable by the vertical clearance of the body of the vehicle off the ground, such as a rock or a high curb, but will still be detected and presented to the driver as a potential impact.
It is an object of the present invention to address disadvantages associated with the prior art.